[yojo]

I had the benefit of working with Geoff Ralston. He likes to tell founders this: "Startups don't fail because they run out of money, startups fail because their founders give up." It sounds trite, but the insight is generally applicable. You do not fail when a project or string of projects is bad, you fail when you stop trying to succeed at the next one.

A few thoughts:

1) There is a dangerous trap for people who are pegged as "smart". The logic is this: You are smart, therefore you do well at things. If you are told this enough, you start to reverse it in your head: "You do well at things, therefore you are smart." If you take that as true, what happens when you do poorly at something? Does that mean you're not actually smart?

The key thing to remember is that everyone starts off bad at everything. Everyone. Everything. You get better by trying and learning. At this point in your life you should optimize for speed of learning. Know that you will have projects that are objectively bad and failed to meet their stated goals. Also know that if you never fail an attempt, you are not working at the edge of your ability, and you are not learning as fast as you could be.

2) Humans are social animals. You are stuck with this, so I encourage you to learn to live with it. You can think rationally about it all day long, but the chimp platform you're built on is always going to measure your self-worth by the strength of your social network and your place in its hierarchy. Go join a groups of people with like-interests. It will be very hard, and you will probably feel constantly nervous and awkward. You will be bad at socializing. But each time you try, you will get a little better. And you won't fail unless you give up.

[mtbcoder]

> "Startups don't fail because they run out of money, startups fail because their founders give up."

I'm not really seeing any insight here. The physical economic limitations that the average start up faces is entirely unrelated to the zeal of its founders.